Cover

Title Page, Copyright

Contents

Introduction: Liberty and Liberalism in Mexico

After their independence from Spain in the early nineteenth
century, all of the new nations of Spanish America (except for
the brief and ill- fated Mexican Empire) adopted the same model of political
organization: the liberal republic. At the beginning of the twenty-first
century all of these countries remain republics. ...

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Emilio Pacheco for his
intellectual encouragement and continued criticism.
Several people made this book possible. Laura Goetz
provided valuable editorial insights. Janet M. Burke,
Arizona State University, and Ted Humphrey, Arizona
State University, were wonderful colleagues, ...

Part 1: The Founding and Early Constitutional Experiments: 1821–1840

José María Luis Mora

José María Luis Mora (1794–1850), the leading liberal thinker
during the first federal republic (1824–53), was ordained as a
priest and received a degree in theology. Later he studied law
and became a lawyer. He was a member of the provincial deputation
of Mexico and later was elected as a deputy to the constituent
congress of the state of Mexico. ...

1. Discourse on the Independence of the Mexican Empire

The custom among civilized peoples, in making some
substantial change to their government, has been to reveal and clarify
before all other nations the reasons that justify those changes. Inasmuch
as such change cannot be limited to the internal effects that constitutional
alterations produce in a state, ...

2. Discourse on the Limits of Civil Authority Deduced from Their Source

Surely few nations have been in such fortunate circumstances
for creating constitutions with all possible human perfection as
are the American nations, which a half century ago became independent
of European powers: The enlightenment generally disseminated by the
freedom of the press established in England, France, Spain, Portugal,
and Naples; ...

3. Discourse on the Freedom of Thought, Speech, and Writing

If, in the time of Tacitus, the ability to think as one
wanted and to speak as one thought was an uncommon happiness, in
our times it would be a consummate misfortune and a quite unfavorable
mark on our nation and institutions should one try to place limits
on freedom of thought, speech, and written expression. ...

4. Discourse on the Means Ambition Uses to Destroy Liberty

Nothing is more important for a nation that has adopted
the republican system, having just emerged from a despotic regime and
having won its liberty by the force of arms, than to reduce the real or
apparent reasons that might allow a great mass of authority and power to
accumulate in the hands of a single man, giving him prestige and ascendency
over all other citizens. ...

5. Discourse on the Civil Liberties of the Citizen

In a society that is well constituted and intends to destroy
all the abuses that have perpetuated the existence of an arbitrary
regime, it is necessary to accustom its members not to be enamored of
insignificant voices and rather to concern themselves with the reality of
things. ...

6. Discourse on Laws That Attack Individual Security

If one carefully seeks the causes of anger and discontent
that one observes among peoples who have tried various systems of government,
passing from the most absolute despotism to the most unrestrained
democracy, one will find that always or almost always it is due to
the obvious opposition and the continual conflict between the principles ...

7. Discourse on the Independence of Judicial Power

The inflamed frenzy that has been observed against the
defeated dissenters and the excessive and sometimes immoderate determination
with which their punishment is urged, seems to us to belong
to the number of those excesses that, in general, are not subject to
a noble principle, nor do they have favorable outcomes, ...

8. Discourse on Public Opinion and the General Will

Here are two phrases as often repeated in republics as
silenced in absolute monarchies, perhaps because their true meaning constitutes
the compelling strength of the first and is the implied censure
and most constant threat against the existence of the second. ...

9. Discourse on the Nature of Factions

Liberal institutions bring with them differences of
opinion, because with each person making use of the precious right
to express an opinion freely, it would be impossible that all members
of society would agree on how to view issues. ...

Lorenzo de Zavala

Lorenzo de Zavala (1788–1836), a politician and historian, was
born in Yucatán. He studied in the city of Mérida at the seminary
of San Ildefonso. He became active in revolutionary politics,
and in 1814 he was imprisoned by the Spanish authorities.
Once released, Zavala returned to Yucatán, where he edited a
newspaper. ...

1. Introduction to Historical Essay on the Mexican Revolutions from 1808 to 1830

In undertaking the publication of Ensayo histórico de la
últimas revoluciones de México, I intend to elucidate the character, customs,
and different situation of the people involved rather than to create
weary narratives in which, as Mr. Sismondi says so well, one encounters
only a repetition of the same acts of cruelty, evil deeds, ...

2. Conclusion to Historical Essay on the Revolutions of Mexico from 1808 to 1830

I have completed the period I determined to examine in
providing a theoretical basis for this little work. The reader will notice
that, although I have passed rapidly over the events, I have not omitted
any of the circumstances that can present them with clarity and from
the genuine point of view. ...

3. Intervention Regarding the Independence of the Province of Guatemala

Mr. Zavala: Sir, the commission to draw up this judgment
has found itself in major conflict because it dealt with a new question
of public law, because it saw the gentlemen deputies of Guatemala
divided, and because the resolution of this matter is of great importance.1 ...

Valentín Gómez Farías

Valentín Gómez Farías (1781–1858) was a liberal politician
born in the city of Guadalajara. He studied medicine and became
a prominent doctor in the city of Aguascalientes, where he
started his political career. Gómez Farías supported Agustín de
Iturbide after independence and was elected deputy to the First
Constituent Congress in 1822. ...

Individual Vote of Mr. Gómez Farías on the Issue of the Advisability of Convening a New Congress

The second day of this month, Mr. Muzquiz and I presented to Your
Sovereignty1 a motion reduced to these terms: We request that a notice
of convocation be created for the meeting of another Congress, this
Congress named before dissolving a permanent deputation, which, in
agreement with the supreme executive power, ...

Lucas Alamán

Lucas Alamán (1792–1853), born in the state of Guanajuato, was
a leading politician and a historian during the first half of the
nineteenth century. His best- known work is his five- volume
Historia de Méjico (1849–52), published toward the end of his
life. Until the 1840s Alamán shared with Mora and other liberals
many of their ideas. ...

Impartial Examination of the Administration of General Vice President Don Anastasio Bustamante

I have little to recommend my opinions but long
observation and much impartiality. They come from one
who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness;
and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of
his life. They come from one almost the whole of whose
public exertion has been a struggle for the liberty of others; ...

Part 2: Liberty in the Liberal Republic

After the war with the United States (1846–48) and the loss of
more than half of the country, Mexicans became increasingly
pessimistic regarding the future. As they searched for the causes
of the problems that had plagued their nation since independence,
some conservatives argued that liberalism and representative
government were out of touch with the realities of the
people. ...

1. What Might Be the Causes of Our Ills, Part 1

El Siglo XIX entitled its lead article of the twenty-first
of this month in this way [What Might Be the Causes of Our Ills], and
we congratulate ourselves that periodicals, even those that, like El Monitor
and El Siglo, show themselves fierce defenders of a system now instinctively
censured by our people, ...

2. What Might Be the Causes of Our Ills, Conclusion

All of that better proves the inappropriateness of the federal representative
system for Mexico and explains in a more satisfactory way
the ills that are lamented even today. Who opened wide to Mexicans
the doors of public administration, the magistracy, the offices, and the
army? ...

3. What Might Be the Causes of Our Ills, Second Article

Regretful, like every good Mexican, for the series of
calamities that have afflicted the country since the time of our political
emancipation, wishing to ascertain the causes that have provoked those
ills, and, most of all, anxious to dam up so much disaster, attacking the
illness at its source, we proposed, in our editorial of January 21, ...

4. What Might Be the Causes of Our Ills, Third Article

In our editorial of the third, we replied to some of the
observations the gentlemen of El Universal made regarding the first
article we published with the title at the head of this one; today we go
on with our task, and we will explain our ideas about the causes that have
contributed secondarily to the development of the ills Mexican society
has suffered in the short period it has existed. ...

Mariano Otero

Mariano Otero (1817–50), born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, was a
lawyer and a liberal politician. Otero was editor of the newspaper
El Siglo XIX and a firm believer in liberal reform. He
played a prominent role as a constitution maker in the 1840s. ...

Individual Vote in the Constituent Congress

When I received from Congress the difficult assignment of taking part
in shaping the constitution project, I did not think I would find myself
in the painful situation in which I am, required, unfortunately for me,
to provide my individual opinion in disagreement with the considerable
majority of the commission. ...

Ignacio Ramírez

Ignacio Ramírez (1818–79), born in Guanajuato, was a writer,
poet, journalist, lawyer, and politician. Along with Guillermo
Prieto, he founded the newspaper Don Simplicio in 1845. Ramírez’s
pen name was El Nigromante (the necromancer). Early in
his life he was imprisoned because of his satirical writings. ...

1. The National Representation

2. Speech to the Constituent Congress, July 7, 1856

The project of Constitution, submitted to the enlightenment
of your sovereignty today, reveals in its authors a not insignificant
understanding of the political systems of our century, but at the
same time an inconceivable neglect of the positive needs of our patria.
Inexperienced politician and unknown orator, ...

3. Letter to Fidel

Do you remember that in one of my last letters I spoke
to you of a woman of some years, but of much talent and a well- preserved
beauty? Well, she knows you and has insisted on writing to you; I enclose
her letter. As ever yours.—The Necromancer ...

Francisco Zarco

Francisco Zarco (1829–69) was a liberal politician and writer
born in the state of Durango. He was the editor in chief of the
liberal newspaper El Siglo XIX. Zarco was considered one of the
most important liberal writers of his time, writing on many subjects,
not only politics, and agitating for reform in his articles. ...

1. The Question of the Veto

Having been the first to call public attention to the need
for resolving conclusively the question of the veto, which arose when
the Ministry of War objected to the decree of Congress that declared
null the articles of the law of Santa Anna regarding rewards for services
lent in the war with the United States, ...

2. The Constitutional Order

We have already said the issuing of the fundamental
code is the strongest blow the reactionary party has suffered in its defeat,
because it ends all pretext for continuing to promote the civil war.
If the reaction is the work of some political party, if this party has a
program, if this program can be shown openly to the nation in order to
seek converts, ...

3. Elections

Before long the battle among the parties on the electoral
field for the selection of the constitutional powers must begin.
With the representative system established and the decision regarding
sovereignty delegated to the general powers and the states, no other
action but the elections remains for the people to exercise their sovereignty
for themselves. ...

4. Progress and Innovation

Our colleague agrees that our society cannot remain static and recognizes
that the need for movement, the tendency to perfect oneself and
to improve conditions, is inherent in man, whom God endowed with all
the powers necessary to elevate his destiny. ...

5. Laws and Customs: The Federation and Freedom of Religion

The laws must conform to customs, and not customs
to laws. Such is the maxim the gentlemen of the Eco Nacional have
established in the most absolute terms in order to say afterward that in
Mexico the liberal party wants social customs to conform to the laws,
from which it can only follow that the political and religious opinions
of the great majority of citizens are opposed to its work, ...

6. Manifesto as Preamble to the Constitution of 1857

Today the great promise of the regenerative Revolution
of Ayutla to return the country to the constitutional order is fulfilled.
This noble demand of the people, so energetically expressed by them
when they rose up to break the yoke of the most menacing despotism,
is satisfied. ...

Ignacio Manuel Altamirano

Ignacio Manuel Altamirano (1834–93), a liberal politician, writer,
lawyer, teacher, and noted orator, was born in the state of Guerrero,
of humble origins. Altamirano was a student of Ignacio
Ramírez at the Instituto Literario de Toluca and taught at several
schools and institutes. With Ramírez and Guillermo Prieto
he started a newspaper, El Correo de México. ...

1. Against Amnesty. Speech before the Second Constitutional Congress, July 10, 1861

With the full conscience of a pure man, with the full
heart of a liberal, with the just energy of the representative of an outraged
nation, I here raise my voice to request that the chamber reject
the report in which the decree of amnesty for the reactionary party is
proposed.1 ...

2. Martyrs of Tacubaya

Today, April 11, 1880, makes twenty-one years since the
clerical party committed a great crime that horrified the Republic and
drew down on itself the condemnation of the people and the anathema
of history. ...

3. Speech by Citizen Manuel Ignacio Altamirano on the Occasion of the Anniversary of Independence, September 15, 1861

You have called me to the rostrum on this solemn night,
and I thank you for it. You have esteemed my poor talent too kindly; but
you have done justice to my patriotism, and I will never forget so distinguished
an honor. ...

Guillermo Prieto

Guillermo Prieto (1818–97) was born in Mexico City. He was
a liberal politician and a poet, and he worked with Valentín
Gómez Farías and Anastasio Bustamante in the 1830s. In 1838
Prieto enlisted in the National Guard. He wrote literary criticism
for El Siglo XIX and served as secretary of the treasury
and in the administration of President Benito Juárez ...

1. In Favor of the Abolition of Internal Duties and Customs

Mr. Prieto says that, although the committee does not
respond to those who oppose it, he has the duty of sustaining an appeal,
because he has been working tirelessly for many years and he will strive
to have it written down in the Constitution. ...

2. Freedom of Commerce

Citizen Prieto, in a passionate speech, lamented with
pain that the educated youth, of whom the citizen mayor is one, supports
restrictive views on freedom of trade and industry, views that not
even Don Lucas Alamán himself, some of whose paragraphs he read,
was ever the champion. ...

3. On the Laws of Reform

Citizen Prieto: Sir, I am certainly surprised to see that
the discussion has gone awry and that it is desired to determine, with
respect to this article and the committee’s addition, whether this matter
is special or if it is a regulatory law. As some references to history are
made and other circumstances brought forward ...

4. On Reforms to the Law of Public Instruction

Citizen Prieto: In such moments of necessity as the
present, a discussion is begun that positively concerns the future of the
Republic and that in all countries of the world has been the object of
attention of parliaments in order to achieve the future prosperity of the
nation. ...

5. On Freedom to Work

Citizen Prieto: Gentlemen, I am going to follow, with
the thoroughness that is possible for me, the young orator who has just
spoken, making use of his excellent method and with the confidence
that is inspired by such a gentlemanly and loyal adversary as he to whom
it has fallen to me to oppose. ...

A new constitution was enacted in 1857, but both the Catholic
Church and the conservative faction opposed it. Civil war was
imminent. At the end of that year (in spite of the fact that he
had sworn to uphold the charter), President Ignacio Comonfort
decided not to enforce the constitution and instead called
on all factions to discuss a new fundamental law that would be
acceptable to all parties. ...

1. The Constitutional Government to the Nation (on the Laws of Reform)

In the difficult and compromised situation in which the
Republic has found itself for the last eighteen months as a consequence
of the scandalous insurrection that exploded in Tacubaya at the end of
1857, and in the midst of the confusion and disorder introduced by that
outrage, as unjustifiable in its ends as in its means, the public power, ...

2. Declaration to the Inhabitants of the United States of Mexico on Freedom of Worship

Art. 1. The laws protect the exercise of Catholic worship and of the
others established in the country as the expression and result of religious
liberty, which, as a natural right of man, has not and cannot have limitations
other than the right of another and the requirements of public
order. ...

Part 3: Liberty and Order

Justo Sierra

Justo Sierra (1848–1912), born in Campeche, was a writer, lawyer,
politician, and historian. Sierra was one of the “new” liberals
influenced by positivism in the second half of the nineteenth
century. He started his literary career at a very young
age, publishing essays and reviews in newspapers, and eventually
became the chief editor ...

1. Emilio Castelar and the Program of La Libertad

La Libertad, in honoring its columns with the program
of El Globo of Madrid, has as its principal aim not only to demonstrate
its complete adherence to the principal ideas expressed by Mr. Castelar,1
but also to show the close harmony with which that program and the
thinking that governed the creation of our daily newspaper are united. ...

2. Reservations

When we speak of the Constitution, when we demand
respect and honor for it, when we assign this as the first of our political
duties, we do not claim that constitutional principles should be accepted
as articles of faith; nor do we believe they are a perfect work, no. ...

3. Liberals and Conservatives

In our country there have been neither liberals nor conservatives,
but rather only revolutionaries and reactionaries. This refers
to the factions, not the men. The revolutionary faction, to be liberal,
has lacked the knowledge that liberty considered as a right cannot be
realized outside of the moral development of a people, which is order; ...

4. Polemic with José María Vigil

The bulletin El Monitor Republicano1 of Thursday is dedicated
to a critical examination of the recent interpretations of Article 5
of the Federal Constitution2 made by the Supreme Court. Its author,
Mr. Vigil, takes advantage of the opportunity to add some dark and vigorous
brushstrokes to the picture, so many times repeated, ...

5. Our Battle Plan

No one is in a better situation than we to choose positions
in the face of future events. We have maintained, supported by
the good sense of the country (of this we have more conclusive proofs
every day), that it was necessary to reform the Constitution in the sense
of creating elements of governmental energy in order to preserve social
interests. ...

José María Vigil: Polemic with Sierra

José María Vigil (1829–1909), born in Jalisco, was a professor,
writer, and journalist. He belonged to the older generation
of liberals who held the 1857 Constitution in high regard. He
wrote articles for several newspapers, among them em
and El Monitor Republicano. ...

1. Bulletin of El Monitor, August 22, 1878

The great objective of the democratic revolution, for
which the Mexican nation has suffered long years of bloody struggles,
is the rights the Constitution of ’57 set down in section 1 of title 1 and
those designated generally by the name of constitutional guarantees. ...

2. Bulletin of El Monitor, August 27, 1878

The preceding letter has given us genuine satisfaction, for if once we
have disagreed with the opinions of Mr. Licenciado de Arteaga, we have
always recognized in our worthy adversary the capable jurist and sincere
republican who seeks in observance of the Constitution the natural
means for strengthening the peace and liberty of the citizens. ...

3. Bulletin of El Monitor, September 3, 1878

Our esteemed colleague at La Libertad has replied to the
response we made to him, saying that he had as his objective to stimulate
this debate over the basics of the new interpretation that the Supreme
Court of Justice has given to Article 5, basics we have left intact. We will,
of course, give an explication: ...

4. Bulletin of El Monitor, September 6, 1878

Reading an article with the title “Truths,” published by
our colleague La Libertad in its issue the day before yesterday because of
the defense we have made of the democratic party and the constitutional
order, has caused us profound pain. We say that that article has caused us
profound pain not so much because of the question itself, ...

5. Bulletin of El Monitor, September 10, 1878

Two of the worthy editors of La Libertad have taken as
their task opposing us, or better said, refuting the principles of a school
beloved by us, this last consideration being the one that makes us continue
the polemic begun; for were it only about our person, we would
cede the ground with pleasure to such worthy writers, ...

6. Bulletin of El Monitor, September 18, 1878

In the very moment we are writing these lines, cannon
shots, music, and rapidly pealing bells announce the celebration of the
sixty-eighth anniversary of Mexican independence, an unforgettable
date in the annals of liberty because it commemorates the first efforts
of a people who, from the depths of the most profound abjection, ...

7. Bulletin of El Monitor, September 27, 1878

One of the facts that has characterized the current administration
has been a marked tendency to favor the old reactionary
party, summoning many of its men, to whom it has entrusted positions
of greater or lesser rank, and even placing them in the legislative bodies
and in the tribunals and courts of justice. ...

8. Bulletin of El Monitor, October 22, 1878

Our esteemed colleague La Libertad, taking personally
a paragraph of our bulletin of the sixteenth, pauses to explain its opinions
in the article entitled “Idealism,” about which we will in turn say
some words, having first to offer a little clarification. ...

9. Bulletin of El Monitor, October 26, 1878

The article in which La Libertad responded to our bulletin
of the twenty-second has caused us true disappointment because,
while we were hoping our colleague would explain to us the scientific
method it has followed to deduce scientifically that the ills overwhelming
Mexican society stem from the institutions that now govern ...

10. Bulletin of El Monitor, October 30, 1878

We have noted that a certain antagonism frequently
establishes itself between the guarantees the Constitution grants to all
inhabitants of the Republic and the needs of society to ensure citizens
the enjoyment of their life and their interests, even managing to attribute
to the first some protection of evildoers, ...

11. Bulletin of El Monitor, December 17, 1878

Knowing a few of the most important facts about our
history, their intimate relationship and their social and political significance,
one must acknowledge the inevitable necessity for the Reform,
as well as the fact that the Reform could not have occurred except in a
revolutionary manner. ...

12. Bulletin of El Monitor, December 27, 1878

We have seen that the principal author of our public
misfortunes, the one that kept the country submerged in civil war and
anarchy for many years, the one that slackened every principal of authority,
providing the example of contempt for the laws and the functionaries
charged with executing them, was the clergy, ...

Emilio Rabasa

Emilio Rabasa (1856–1930), born in Chiapas, was a jurist, novelist,
diplomat, journalist, and historian who opposed the Mexican
Revolution. During the Porfirio Díaz era Rabasa was governor
of Chiapas. After Díaz fell he supported the coup of Victoriano
Huerta (1913) and agreed to enter the diplomatic service. ...

1. The Election

When an adolescent first becomes aware of what a
popular election is and the goal it has, the idea presents itself to his spirit
in its simplest form; it is like a revelation of justice that seduces him
and wins over his will. The idea is annoying mainly because of its simplicity,
the simplicity of the immaculate theory. ...

2. Supremacy of Legislative Power

The actual election establishes the government but
does not regulate it, and precisely in the harmonious operation of the
branches created by the Constitution lies the secret of the stability of the
government, the guarantee of liberties, and the foundation of the tranquility
and success of the nation. ...

Part 4: Against the Current 1930–1989

Jorge Cuesta

Jorge Cuesta (1903–42), born in Veracruz, was a chemist, poet,
and writer. He was a friend and collaborator of Aldous Huxley.
Although Cuesta was a scientist by training, he was an artist at
heart and joined a group of writers in the first half of the twentieth
century. ...

1. Politics in the University

few months ago, in two articles published in El Universal,
I took the liberty of criticizing some ideas that Lic. Don Vicente
Lombardo Toledano has about the university, because they are not very
academic in that, under the pretext of serving the university, in reality
they wish its ruin. Those ideas have had good luck; ...

2. A New Clerical Politics

In two previous articles I have pointed out the political
depth that exists in the official tendency to impose a communist dogma
on the school, a tendency that, although originating in the heart of the
state itself inasmuch as it is systematically supported by the secretary of
education, who finds in it the superior standard of his acts, ...

3. Crisis of the Revolution

A notable change has taken place in Mexican political
thinking with respect to the epoch immediately following pacification
of the Republic. Then, the political horizon was much more expansive
than now; the future was rich in prospects, and the activity that flourished
in politics was that of the imagination. ...

Antonio Caso

Antonio Caso (1883–1946), born in Mexico City, was a philosopher
and university professor. As a young man he became
dissatisfied with the prevailing philosophical ideas of his time.
Indeed, during the first decade of the twentieth century positivism
was the official doctrine supported by the minister of education,
Justo Sierra. ...

Consciousness of Liberty

Our epoch, which begins with the war of the nations,
possesses attributes that differentiate and characterize it. The great
industrial development, like the scientific unfolding, does not constitute,
certainly, an exclusive attribute of the period of human history
to which we refer, ...

Octavio Paz

Octavio Paz (1914–98) was born in Mexico City. A poet and
essayist, Paz is probably the twentieth century’s most famous
and universally known intellectual from the Spanish-speaking
world. He received numerous awards, including the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1990, ...

1. The Liberal Tradition

If I let only my feelings speak, these words would be a
long, interminable expression of gratitude. But my emotion is not blind.
I know well that the symbolic reality of this act is more real than the
fleeting reality of my person. I am barely an episode in the history of
our literature, ...

2. Literature and the State

The Republic of Letters is a nation with an ill- defined
territory and shifting frontiers. A constitution rules it whose laws, fanciful
and contradictory, are revoked daily in order to proclaim others even
more chimerical. An invisible king, without face and without name, governs
it; ...

3. Poetry, Myth, Revolution

It is very difficult to express in few and clear words
what I feel: emotion, gratitude, surprise. Above all: I have been touched
that you, Mr. President, have had the goodness to deliver the Alexis de
Tocqueville Prize personally to me. I will never forget your gesture.
Your generous words heighten my emotion: ...

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